I have spent the last two videos on my channel
covering developments in red ball speedrunning that have taken place after I released my red
ball world record progression documentary in November of 2020, and this video marks the third
and final installment in this trilogy of sorts. In “How the ‘Flawless’ Red Ball Speedrun Record got
Destroyed”, we took a look at the evolution of the legendary sub 20 train strategy and how it became
implemented in full-game red ball speedruns, unlocking the potential for the sub 3 barrier
being broken in the game. The video left off with JonasGaming’s insane accomplishment of beating red
ball in 3:01 flat, placing him tantalizingly close to the elusive barrier. In my previous video “Red
Ball’s Biggest Mystery was Finally Solved After 12 Years,” we explored the development of the
death warp strategy present across multiple games in the red ball series, diving into a technical
explanation of the technique and the lore behind it. The death warp allowed level 4 to be completed
2 seconds faster than normal, making the race to beat the game in under three minutes much more
attainable for everyone involved. Since the release of the first video in this trilogy, the
players in the race to Sub 3: Caramel, rare_eg, JonasGaming, and Xdxbox(haha) have all proven
their capability in achieving the milestone, with many sub 3 paces having been lost to the
train between them. On top of this, another player made their way into the competition, increasing
the number of players attempting to beat the game in under 3 minutes to five. If you read the
title of this video, then you know what is coming. One of these five players did the unthinkable
and shattered this elusive, final minute barrier, becoming the uncontested champion of red ball
speedrunning. If you haven’t caught yourself up to speed in this story, I highly recommend
checking out Red Ball - World Record Progression and the two other videos in this current trilogy
to catch yourself completely up to speed. Also, if you have been enjoying the flash speedrunning
content, do make sure to subscribe, because there are still so many more stories to tell, and
I am not going anywhere anytime soon. So, if you are ready, let’s take a look at the
events that have transpired since Jonas’ 3:01 12 levels world record and how Red Ball’s
Legendary Speedrun Barrier was Finally Shattered. To begin, let us take a look at many people’s
favorite to become the first to break the sub 3 barrier, Caramel. In late April, Caramel’s PB
in Red Ball still stood as an unrecorded 3:03.57 set on the 14th of that month. This run marked
the first time that Caramel had ever pulled off sub 20 train first try in a personal best, which
if you aren’t aware yet, is an extremely difficult and inconsistent strategy that has the potential
to save around 8 seconds by collecting this flag before it enters a large underground section.
However, it fittingly has a success rate amongst the game’s very best runners of around 1/20.
This unrecorded run could easily have been the first sub 3, but the six seconds that he
lost in level 10 prevented it from being so. After this run, Caramel went full steam ahead
with attempting sub 20 train whenever possible, even on runs that were already far beyond saving.
On the 25th of April, he entered level 10 three seconds behind but managed to exit three
seconds ahead by not committing any mistakes, now having a best possible time of 2:58. His sub 3
paces counter read 7, all of which were runs that could have been the very first sub 3 had he nailed
sub 20 train. This pace would mark number 8, and once again, he lined up for the strategy. He
got the first necessary jump on the large spikes that are supposed to kill red ball on contact,
but he would unfortunately die on the second jump. Later that same day, he would get onto sub 3 pace
number 9, 5.5 seconds ahead of his PB this time. Once again, he nailed the first hop, but wasn’t
so lucky on the second one. On the 30th of April, he got on a run that was even further ahead out
of level 10 (being 5.69 seconds ahead of his PB), and he would successfully perform both hops, but
he unfortunately did not garner enough speed to land on the first black platform, landing into
the open cart below. He lost 7 seconds in level 11 having to wait for the flag, but still finished
the run with a low 3:04, giving him a new best recorded time. This run still marked the fastest
time verified on the leaderboard without the use of sub 20 train, even faster than the first world
record that utilized the strategy, rare.eg’s 3:04. However, Eg’s 3:04 did take place before
the advent of death warp in level 4, which, as mentioned before, is a strategy that saves
around 2 seconds. In case you aren’t yet aware, Red Ball is able to activate the flag at the end
of the level by contacting this axe because his position in the camera of the game gets set to
his position in the entire level upon death, though make sure to watch the full-length
video on the subject for a more in-depth explanation. While Caramel’s failed sub
20 counter on sub 3 pace began to rack up, the world record holder at the time,
JonasGaming, was doing just the same. Jonas, having a time just a second off of the
legendary 3 minute barrier, was also the favorite of many to attain the milestone first. In late
April, he and Caramel were by far the most active participants in the race to sub 3, as Jonas poured
in thousands of attempts after attaining his 3:01. On the 27th of April alone, he lost three
separate sub 3 paces to sub 20 train, with every attempt failing on the first large spikes
jump. On the 1st of May, he was on pace again, but he unfortunately didn’t even get to attempt
the strategy since he accidentally died on the ceiling spikes placed in the first section of
the level. Also on May 1st, the clear underdog in the quest for sub 3 would pull off something
important that would make his presence more known. At the end of April, Xbox’s PB was still a
3:13.750, far away from the sub 3 barrier and even his other competitors that were going for
the milestone. However, what Xbox lacked with his PB time, he made up for in his sheer consistency
and mastery with sub 15 train, a variant of sub 20 that could save an additional 2-3 seconds by
collecting the flag before it went under this ground triangle. Xbox had poured around 50 hours
into Individual Level attempts of the strategy to try to push it to near perfection, and in the
process, he became more consistent at sub 15 train than top runners were with even the normal sub
20 train strategy. This variant involved a very difficult first jump to land on a further ridge
in the train than normal sub 20 used and a back corner boost off of the second black platform in
order to garner the speed necessary to collect the flag as soon as possible. Thus, the best
possible time when xbox entered level 11 in his 3:13 was a 2:57, but he opted not to go for sub
15 to hopefully secure a time in the 3:0x range. However, a death in 12 unfortunately prevented
him from achieving this. On the 1st of May, Xbox entered level 11 a second ahead of his
3:13, making his best possible time a 2:56. However, xbox again opted not to go for sub 15,
and this time, he did actually secure his first 3:0x with a 3:09.82. If xbox had gone for sub
15 in this run and gotten it, it would have been a sub 3, since sub 15 train saves around
11 seconds over the traditional train strategy. Proving that, with the right amount of luck, xbox
could suddenly obtain the milestone at any moment. However, Xbox would instead opt to take a hiatus
on playing Red Ball after achieving this personal best, effectively dropping him from the race
to sub 3, dropping the number of participants down to three. Thankfully, in his absence, others
would continue to pour attempts into the game Jonas and Caramel were getting
so tantalizingly close to sub 3. On the 5th of May, Jonas exited the large
spikes with what looked like enough speed, but he barely clipped the front
of the first black platform, losing all of his momentum, something
which is almost impossible to recover from. And, on the 7th of May, Caramel nailed almost
all of sub 20 train on a run that could have barely gotten sub 3, but he unfortunately died
while trying to jump on the very last sawblade, something which generally isn’t an issue. The very
next day, caramel would hit sub 20, but it would only garner him a pb of 3:01.933 due to him losing
significant chunks of time in the car in level 8 and in level 10. At this point, the participants
in the race to sub 3 were starting to feel extremely defeated with motivation dying down and
rare.eg seemingly only grinding for the milestone in just one stream of his attempts on the 5th of
May. Things would quiet down somewhat, and just as the quest for sub 3 seemed to be forgotten,
another runner would suddenly join in the hunt. Going into May, speedrunner Sw_ord_ had
a PB of 3:08.890, which had been set all the way back on the first of April.
Sword decided to take a stab at getting a run with sub 20 train in it, having become
much better at the strategy since his 3:08. And, around 3000 attempts after his
previous PB, sword would end up doing this: After being a second behind his PB going into
level 11, sword was now 7.2 seconds ahead thanks to sub 20 train. With a perfect level 12, sword
had the ability to just barely clutch out the first sub 3. Unfortunately, he clipped this corner
after the spike pit, he missed the stair corner jump before the ending ramp, and he missed
the backup jump to get back on top of it, ending with a 3:03.550. This near sub 3 put
the other participants back on high alert, but sword wouldn’t ease up on the
pressure. Just two days later, on the 15th of May, Sword entered
level 11 over a second ahead, easily putting him on sub 3 pace with sub
20 train. This is what transpired next. Mere pixels away from the flag’s hitbox, sword
got pushed out of the cart. By possibly being just a frame too slow, sword failed sub 20 train
and another chance at obtaining the first sub 3. After jumping off of the third sawblade,
sword landed squarely in the gap between two carts and lost most of his speed after
jumping. This extremely unfortunate situation is what left him just barely too slow to
collect the flag. Now, three runners had felt the distinct pain of losing a sub 3
pace beyond the large spikes in level 11. Jonas by barely clipping the first black platform,
Caramel by dying on the third sawblade, and Sword first by making mistakes in level 12
and later by landing squarely in the ridge between two carts after jumping off of the
third sawblade. So close, yet still so far away. But hold on a minute, we really haven’t talked
much about rare.eg, the person who achieved the first 3:0x with his legendary 3:07 and the first
world record utilizing sub 20 train with his 3:04. He was still the favorite of many to achieve the
first sub 3 even though he had only publicly done attempts a single time after Jonas’ 3:01. Was
he up to anything? As it turns out, he was. On the 13th of May, rare.eg got onto a run
that was 6.9 seconds ahead of a high 3:04 out of level 9, easily on pace for the sub 3.
Unfortunately, he missed the frame perfect super bounce strategy in level 10 on his first attempt.
After resetting, he did nail it on his second try, but he lost over three seconds because of the
mistake. In level 11, eg nailed sub 20 train, and entered level 12 3.7 seconds ahead, yielding
him a best possible time of just around 3:00.5, which was on pace for new world record. From
this, it would appear that sub 3 was impossible, but this was actually not the case. Over on the
individual level side of red ball speedrunning, there is an extremely difficult strategy
in level 12 that involves getting a large corner jump off of the bottom stair here, a much
faster way of reaching the top of the ending ramp, saving up to half a second. Indeed, with
this strategy, it was possible for him to squeak out a sub 3 by a matter of frames,
and he was planning on going for it. However, the game wouldn’t even give him a chance, as
when he tried to jump into the beginning spike pit for the second time, red ball exploded into
eight pieces. The next day, on the 14th of May, eg had a chance to redeem himself, being 5.6
seconds ahead into level 11, but he unfortunately jumped just a bit too late while attempting sub
20 and died. Looking at all of this, you may be wondering why eg was effectively playing the
game in secret and why nobody is hearing about these paces until the release of this video. Lets
just say that eg speedrunning mindset operates in a vastly different fashion than most other
people, like myself. All the way back in 2018, when eg and I were competing to become the first
to complete red ball in under 3 minutes and 30 seconds, eg was also extremely secretive about
when he was doing attempts, what paces he was getting, and how close he actually was to the
milestone. I may have won that battle, but eg later managed to push the games to much greater
heights essentially all on his own. For eg, speedrunning is a battle for personal improvement
first, with the community-driven part coming in a distant second, and there is absolutely
nothing wrong with having this kind of mindset. After nearly obtaining a sub 3, eg would be the
last person to send a message in discord about it, and that is just how he operates. Eg had
very special plans of what to do if he did become the first to obtain sub 3, but time would
only tell if he would be able to execute them. After so many fails and so many close
calls from four separate runners, Sub 3 was bound to happen soon.
Thankfully, on the 17th of May, somebody would finally pull it off. So, lets
go through a very familiar song one more time in order to properly illustrate what is by far
the greatest red ball speedrun ever performed. 2:57.8. On his fittingly 20th sub 3 pace into the
train, he finally nailed sub 20 train and closed out the run he had dreamed of. He had nailed sub
20 train first try on eleven other occasions, but none of those runs were fast enough into the train
to become the first sub 3, until now. Yes, he had yielded some minor mistakes throughout the run,
but things like his outstanding ramp double jump in 6, his amazing hood launch in level 8, thanked
through the video URL of the sub 3 run itself, and his blisteringly fast sub 20 train certainly
made up for it. Like how eg did with his 3:07, caramel went far beyond the sub 3 barrier with
his 2:57.8, making one fact very clear. He did not need the death warp in level 4 in order to
complete red ball in under 3 minutes. Adding back the 2 seconds that it saved, he would have
finished with a 2:59.8, still under the milestone. Regardless, Caramel had become the first to attain
a sub 3, and this is what he had to say about it: “I have been waiting for so long… The day after EG
beat my record, I started practicing sub 20 train. I slowly became more and more consistent with
this incredibly difficult strategy. On the 19th of March, I got a 3:05, which did utilize sub
20 train, but had more mistakes in the earlier levels. Four days later, I choked a 3:02 pace
to 12. I stopped playing for a while and came back when the Death Warp was discovered.
I was slowly improving my Personal Best, practicing constantly and getting more consistent
at levels such as 6, 8, 9. I managed to get over 50% consistency on all of them. It was all a
matter of hitting the 10 superbounce and a fast sub 20 train. After 8222 attempts, over
250 hours of playtime, 20 sub 3 paces and 50 WR chokes it has finally become a reality.
Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the first time Red Ball 1 has been completed in under 3 minutes.
As for the run, it is unoptimized to say the least (levels 2, 4, 9, 10, 12), but hey! The
barrier which was long awaited to be broken, has just been broken! Together We Move
The Limits. Peace~Marcin The Caramel” Now that this milestone has been broken, the only
question left is “Where do we go from here.” Near the end of the first video in this post 3:07
trilogy, I made the claim that a time under 2:50 is something that will “almost certainly”
not happen. However, it seems like from the comments that people don’t really know what
“almost certainly” means, and I honestly could have done a lot better job dictating what I meant.
So, let’s set the record straight here. Sub 2:50, is absolutely a possible time. The segmented run
that has been created with the best individual level times produced by hundreds upon hundreds
of hours of gameplay by various members in the community stands at a 2:38, and the current TAS
of the game stands at a 2:29. If caramel had not lost a second in level 2, nailed the extremely
inconsistent back corner boost in level 4, gotten a better plunger in level 9, gotten a 1
jump ball in level 10, and not clipped this corner in level 12, all while doing everything else
that he managed to accomplish, that would have made his time a 2:53. Adding on sub 15 train, and
maybe something else like TAS 3 for good measure, a time under 2:50 certainly becomes feasible.
However, the main problem with this is that there are serious doubts that a runner will ever be
dedicated enough to pour in the tens of thousands of attempts and likely thousands of hours of
playtime necessary in order to pull this off. Red Ball is a physics sandbox where strategies
like full 6 ramp double jump and sub 20 train will almost certainly remain extremely inconsistent
for the rest of time. There is no way to memorize a string of inputs and execute them to perform a
desired outcome, and it is almost never possible to line yourself up on an object in order to have
a better chance at executing a strategy. I have seen how immensely draining this game was for the
runners attempting to achieve the first sub 3, so I can’t even wrap my head around how one would
feel attempting to achieve a sub 2:50. But, as we all know, you can’t predict the future. Though Red
Ball seems pretty much solved at this point as a result of hundreds of hours of glitch hunting,
IL grinding, and TASsing, there is absolutely no way to be certain of that. We may find brand new
strategies, we may figure out how to bring some TAS only strategies to real time attempts, or
we may indeed find setups for performing things like sub 15 train more consistently. Regardless,
one thing will always remain true. Red Ball is an extremely unpredictable, unusual game, one
that really only really exists today because of a miracle. This whole community that we have
built only exists because in 2008, a concrete mixer salesman from Russia was sent a link to a
blog, a blog that would inspire him to create the game series that we all know and love. We must
continue to strive for the seemingly impossible and always expect the unexpected. Thank you for
watching the world record progression of red ball. Hey everyone, I hope you all enjoyed watching the
videos. While the progression graph is playing and the credits are rolling, there are some things
that I would like to mention here at the end, including the announcement of a $200 raffle,
so make sure to keep watching. Firstly, on the 9th of June, JonasGaming got trolled by the
game again by getting a 3:00.1, putting him just 4 frames off the milestone. Jonas has put an immense
amount of effort into trying to obtain a sub 3, and I am certain that he will achieve it at some
point in the near future. Also, during the making of this video, a massive development was found in
level 3 of the game that has enormous implications for future runners attempting a sub 3 and for the
feasibility of attaining a sub 2:50 in the future. By executing a single frame perfect jump at the
start of the level and continuing to hold down the jump and right keys, you get placed in the
perfect position to get a recoil jump off of the front of this elevator. By then jumping off of the
back edge of the platform, you can reach the flag around 2 seconds faster than normal fast three.
The fact that this works is nothing short of a miracle, and the importance of this new strategy,
coined bird 3, cannot be understated. With it, Xdxboxjaja managed to achieve a 3:04.500 on the
13 of June without utilizing either sub 15 or sub 20 train. With a slightly cleaner 12 and sub 15
train, which xbox is the master of, this run had the potential to be a 2:52. Bird 3 nearly saves
as much time as TAS 3, which involves an extremely inconsistent corner boost on the elevator, has a
success rate of around 1/20, and would essentially be required, along with sub 15 train, to someone
to realistically attain a 2:49. Now, that timesave is orders of magnitude more consistent and
is completely skill based. 2:49 may still be a distant pipe dream, but with bird three, we at
least have a glimmer of hope of it actually being obtained one day. And yes, this strategy is a
reminder that, despite what we might think, we can never be certain that red ball is a game that is
100% solved. Now, with that out of the way, there are a lot of people that I would like to thank
that helped out with the making of this video. Thanks to the sub 3 crew, Caramel, Jonas, Sword,
eg, and Xbox for their continued help while making these videos and their continued dedication
to speedrunning Red Ball. Along from them, thog_n, yakattack, bnmc, Motorjam, NorXor, and
Skamory also helped out with editing the script, so a huge thanks goes out to them as well. The
cubing and tetris legend himself, RadicalMacaroni, helped me with some microphone and audio stuff,
so big thanks to him for that. And, of course, an enormous thank you goes out to the entire
red ball community for supporting other runners, for continuing to push the games in the red ball
series to their absolute limits, and for showing Caramel’s sub 3 video a massive amount of love,
with it already sitting at 12 thousand views less than a month after its release. I highly recommend
watching the entire video to get a full grip of his monumental achievement. And, finally, it is
time to announce the $200 raffle that I mentioned earlier. Thanks to a very generous donation that
I received out of the blue from the creator of red ball, Eugene Fedoseev, I would like to hold
a raffle where entry is gained by achieving a certain time on the red ball 1 leaderboard. If
you are new to the game or have a time of 3:40 or above, you can enter this raffle by achieving
a time of 3:39 or below. If you currently have a time of 3:30 or above, you can enter the
raffle by achieving a time of 3:29 or below, and so on. With this system, effectively everyone
has a chance to enter… well, except for Caramel I guess. Two $100 winners will be drawn on July 15,
2021, which should be exactly a month after this video releases. To enter, you must submit your run
with recorded video evidence to the speedrun.com leaderboard, following all rules and guidelines,
and have it be verified. To learn the game, I highly recommend checking out the red
ball beginner tutorial on my second channel, which I will link in the description, in the
pinned comment, and on the end screen. Also, make sure to join the red ball speedrunning
discord if you have any questions or would like help learning the game. Best of luck goes out
to all of the runners. That wraps up everything, so thank you all once again for watching,
and I will see you all in the next video.
